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User talk:Mealla
Demons and Celestials EditThis may not be the correct place to ask but I figured it would be my best bet considering your knowledge. I am looking for info/history on Demons and Celestials. Wars and conflicts (between each other specifically), as well as other specifics as to types. Could you recommend any texts or lead me in the right direction? Thank you for any help, Soulscream—Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.99.250.45 (talk • contribs) 15:54, 25 October 2010 UTC I think I am going to refer you to Niirfa-sa, as I'm sure he's far more knowledgeable on the subject! I will ask him to leave something on this page, since you haven't registered, so you don't have your own page on which to leave something. Fw190a8 (talk · contr) 15:57, October 25, 2010 (UTC) I'm flattered that I'm considered an expert, though I don't really think of myself as one. I'm not actually as well-read as I'd like to be and about half the books on the list I haven't read or have only read parts of. However, I do have a memory for detail that means I often appear to know particularly obscure information. So I'll give a few pointers. Celestials are beings made out of supernatural goodness. In Dungeons & Dragons (including FR), good and evil are more than just moral viewpoints - they're physical substances (which is why spells like detect evil work and why certain alignments are vulnerable to certain attacks). Certain planes and creatures are made out of this "physical" good and creatures so composed are called celestials. This can result in some oddities - for instance, not all celestials are good in their personal alignment: a celestial can be neutral or evil under the right circumstances, although they're inclined towards good. Also, not all immortals are celestials and not all celestials are immortals: for instance, angels are, as of 4e, from both the fiendish and celestial planes and noble eladrin as one example are fey celestials. Good-aligned gods are celestials as well. Demons are a specific type of fiend, which is the opposite of a celestial, being composed of supernatural evil. There are many kinds of fiends but demons are a specific type that inhabits the Abyss and is usually chaotic evil (deamons, who are neutral evil are, as of 4e, demons). Demons are involved in a millennia-long conflict with devils - their opposite - known as the Blood War, which currently is at an unsteady ceasefire. According to 4e, demons derived from a corrupted primordial. Demons are composed of several different categories: loumara, obyriths, tanar'ri, and yugoloths (daemons), each of which has its own specific qualities. Both ■Forgotten Realms Campaign Settings/Guides (2e and up) ■Manual of the Planes (3e and 4e) ■Monster Manuals (2e and up) ■Planar Handbook ■Planescape Campaign Setting ■Planescape Monstrous Compendiums ■Planewalker's Handbook Celestials ■Book of Exalted Deeds ■The Plane Above: Secrets of the Astral Sea (just a guess as I don't have it yet and 4e doesn't like using good-aligned monster templates, but my guess is that it at least covers the celestial gods and their servants in some small detail) Demons ■Book of Vile Darkness ■Faces of Evil: The Fiends ■Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss ■Fiend Folio ■The Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos Personally, I'd recommend going with the most recent information (4e) which is both the most up to date and the most broad, and then working your way backwards, which is often more detailed but which is out of date in some cases (such as all angels being celestial). Niirfa-sa 17:45, October 25, 2010 (UTC) Thank you, and I now am registered so any other info anyone comes up with would be appreciated. (Now to see if I figured this out....) --Mealla 18:46, October 25, 2010 (UTC) The 4e information on the subject is pretty scarce. Demonomicon is really the best 4e source on the sort of information you're looking for (with some interesting stuff on the origin of the Abyss, the Blood War, and the fall of Asmodeus). The all-time best source for fiendish wars is Hellbound: The Blood War, a second edition Planescape supplement (and I would also promote Faces of Evil). I would generally not recommend - or, at least, recommend them less - 4th edition sources because they won't tell you much on this subject and, really, what does "out of date" even mean? Roleplaying game supplements aren't like milk; they don't spoil. It's your game; draw inspiration from the sources you want (all editions have some merit). Or just make things up, which is perhaps the real joy of tabletop RPGs. Be aware, however, that 4th edition has largely established a new continuity that won't be very compatible with earlier editions (the Forgotten Realms setting retains at least some previous-edition continuity, though this can interact oddly when attempting to interpret 4e core material in light of it). If you're playing in 4e, though, of course you'll want 4e sources for their stats, at the very least. With all that said, the main conflict between fiends is/was the Blood War (which has officially ended, or at least paused, in the 4th edition era). The Blood War is said to be a remnant of the Dawn War, the epic conflict between gods and primordials that climaxed with the battle between the Wind Dukes of Aaqa and the Queen of Chaos, and ended definitively (at least on Toril with the Tearfall, when Ao divided the worlds of Toril and Abeir, giving Abeir to the primordials and Toril to the gods. There haven't really been any great named battles between fiends and celestials apart from the decimation of the obyriths by the eladrins and, oh right, Asmodeus's rebellion and the so-called Intervention of the Celestials. For the most part, conflicts between Good and Evil are relatively small, local affairs compared to the titanic battles between the opposing forces of Evil, which have historically taken up most of the fiends' time. Since the Intervention of the Celestials, in which an allied celestial army got its collective rears definitively kicked by the temporarily allied fiendish races, celestial beings typically let the fiends fight among themselves and target only their opposites (celestial archons versus devils, asuras versus demons, guardinals versus yugoloths), or defend mortals from fiendish invasions. For some serious 3e/2e/4e/Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk/Planescape fusion fiendish and celestial history geekery, see this thread. -- Rowan Earthwood 20:52, October 25, 2010 (UTC) Hahaha. That's very, very detailed and you're obviously more familiar with this than me (like I said, I'm not as well-read as I'd like to be). To clarify my use of the term "out of date" what I mean is that some information, such as angels being celestials or demons not being elementals is out of date. So from a lore-based perspective, 4e will give you the most up to date information, even if it's also the sparsest. But I agree that earlier editions are far better for detailed lore, even if some of the details are, as I've said, obsolete or out of date. My intention was not to indicate that the tabletop rules are out of date - since, as you say, they don't spoil with age. Another important note: while the lore might be (slightly) out of date in older editions in many cases on the wiki we've ruled that as in-universe misconceptions, so thereotically they might still be applicable in particular circumstances - it depends what you're using the lore for. With that, I think we should probably stop crowding Fw190's talk page up, especially since there's now a talk page for the querier, Mealla, in question. Niirfa-sa 21:32, October 25, 2010 (UTC) Copied from Fw190's talk Page. Mealla 17:13, October 27, 2010 (UTC)